Eleanor Fox and Harry First host Global Administrative Law Competition Project workshop

Photo of Eleanor FoxPhoto of Harry FirstEleanor Fox, Walter J. Derenberg Professor of Trade Regulation, and Harry First, Charles L. Denison Professor of Law were the NYU Law co-hosts of a workshop on process, procedure, and performance norms in competition law systems around the world on February 4 and 5. The workshop was a part of the Global Administrative Law (GAL) Competition Project, which is co-directed by Fox and Michael Trebilcock, a professor at University of Toronto. The workshop was facilitated by a student team, largely from the Trade Regulation (Competition) program, whose members served as rapporteurs: Kojiro Fujii  (LL.M. '11) and Tara Kelly (LL.M. '11), student co-coordinators, and Thomas Bennett '12, Aris Gulapa (LL.M. '11), Simon Kung '11, Amy Marshak '11, and Kara Scheiden '12.

The GAL competition team is comprised of 15 professors and practitioners from around the world, including six recent graduates of the Law School and four former global faculty and research fellows. The team is studying competition law regimes in 11 countries and other jurisdictions. Workshop members hailed from Chile, Japan, South Africa, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

"By digging deeply into the procedures and processes of each of the jurisdictions, we were able to see patterns as well as explanations of what causes a system to work or not work," says Fox. "We pinpointed some endemic problems in systems that are younger or less well resourced." Fox noted that the purpose of the workshop and the project is not to judge what design is superior, but rather to describe and understand the competition regimes in each jurisdiction, to examine the norms of each, and at a later stage to evaluate reforms that can improve a system’s process or performance, given its own context and practical possibilities.

A comparative assessment of competition law systems is one of several projects of the GAL Network. The network  was founded by NYU Law’s Institute for International Law and Justice (IILJ) in partnership with a group of institutions located primarily in developing countries. A comparative assessment of competition law systems is one of several projects it is pursuing. Global administrative law is an emerging field of study that was pioneered at NYU Law by Richard Stewart, University Professor and John Edward Sexton Professor of Law, and Benedict Kingsbury, IILJ director and Murry and Ida Becker Professor of Law.

Published February 16, 2011